Northside youth sound off on on ICE and demand local leaders act
North News interns Clarence Ransom, left, Azalea Petry-Towns, Ta’Khya Carlisle and Kiya Darden
ICE operations in the city have us all on edge. Our senses are rattled by images of agents barging into homes, breaking up families, and the shooting deaths of two legal observers. We asked our interns how they are processing the images and headlines. Four wrote essays with heartbreaking depth and righteous anger. Their writing comes after a week where the fear hit closer to home. A classmate at North High was detained by ICE, and a neighborhood near Farview Park saw unrest and clouds of tear gas after another ICE shooting. The photos of our interns smiling might strike the wrong tone given the moment and the content of their essays. It’s important to note their photos were taken in the fall before the convergence of ICE in Minneapolis, when their concerns were about grades, friends, music and trends on social media.
I'm tired of your words
By Ta’Khya Carlisle, North News Intern
“My thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by this tragedy.”
“We publicly condemn this treacherous act of violence on our communities.”
“We need to protect our students! They deserve a safe learning environment.”
So do it. Protect us.
Tears after tears, bodies after bodies, bloodshed after bloodshed, it’s the same thing every single time. I’m tired of the same words. We’re all tired of the same words. So many things are constantly being said, yet there's no glimpse of change coming our way anytime soon.
As most of us know, on Jan. 7, a legal observer, a wife, a mother, and most of all, a human, Renee Nicole Good, was unlawfully shot and killed by an ICE agent in South Minneapolis.
Later that day, Roosevelt High School was attacked by multiple ICE agents. Some students were tear-gassed and tackled, while two staff members were forced to the ground and violently detained. This left the whole community stunned.
Students, being the strong, resilient, and marvelous community they are, did not take this act of inhumanity lightly. They stood up, spoke out, and organized a walkout for the following Monday. Beautiful protest signs, songs, and chants were sung with an abundance of anger and empathy, which the rest of America clearly struggles to muster.
As empowered and proud as I am of the students at Roosevelt, I’m also deeply disturbed to see how this has become our reality. All we’re ever given are words.
Words of encouragement, words of empathy, words of solidarity, words, words, words, words.
Where is the action? Where are the policies, the protection, the so-called security you claim to provide us with? Where is it? We were never promised safety, but damn it, we were promised something. And now that something has been stripped away from us so violently, as if it were anything less than nothing.No more drills, or monitoring, or fake scenarios to prepare for the real deal. We need real solutions. Solutions that require movement and taking initiative. How many of us must be traumatized, hurt, shot, killed, until you listen to our words, instead of your own?
How many more press conferences must be held, and statements must be made, before you realize words don't stitch up the bullet holes?
How loud do I have to laugh for you to listen?
By Kiya Darden, North News Intern
My Papa used to say that laughing was the best way to keep himself from crying about something. Unfortunately, I’m not quite sure how much longer I can laugh at a world that finds my very existence just as funny.
I find it hard to understand how I’m supposed to witness so much tragedy while I continue writing essays and applying for college, walking around like I haven’t noticed the shitstorm closing in. How do I dream in a world where I can’t close my eyes?
I suppose I was never meant to understand, huh? Not meant to have significant thoughts, ideas, or experiences that ever make it off the page. Just meant to exist. Endure. Wait until my name’s in someone’s headline for anyone to care about what I may have believed in, then let someone else tell it.
When you’re young, living in the world that we do, there is absolutely nothing you can say or express that won’t be considered complaining. You’ll fix your face, check your tone, fix your posture, smile some, rewrite that email, rephrase that sentence, smile some more. Maybe even join a community newspaper in hopes that, for once, they’ll hear your words instead of your age.
I spent years laughing at the expectations the rest of the world has placed on my generation. The delusion that a bunch of kids, who nobody wanted to listen to, could somehow salvage centuries' worth of ashes was so absurd I had to find it funny. I never once considered that the world was laughing just as hard at the same joke.
Now, I’m not claiming to have all the answers. I don’t know how to put out the dumpster fire we’ve been so graciously shoved in. It would just be really nice if, at any time, an adult would speak to me like someone who’s burning under the same flame.
Student safety shouldn’t be on silent.
By Clarence Ransom, North News Intern
My high school is 16 minutes away from Roosevelt High School. We are 16 minutes away from being targeted, tear-gassed, and tackled by ICE agents.
Even closer, it’s seven minutes from 23rd and Lyndale, where a baby was teargassed in a car.
Next door to my class, a student's seat is empty because they got deported.
At this point, I wonder when I will have to pull out my phone to call for help, and if it comes to it, I worry I won’t be able to.
Since the new year, in the morning announcements at my school, I hear: “Remember, you can not have your phone out during educational time.”
While the school board says banning phones will help students focus in class, many of us worry the policy doesn’t take safety into account. With recent increases in ICE operations and the fear agents have instilled across Minneapolis, some students say having quick access to their phones is important for contacting family or asking for help in emergencies.
On Jan. 5, my high school implemented Policy No. 5210. The policy states that students aren’t allowed to use their personal devices during instructional time and must have them turned off and silenced.
But it feels like we are in a war zone right now, with ICE abducting anyone as they please. Taking away phones seems like an irrelevant policy at this moment. At times, I use my phone to feel connected with my family and friends, and to coordinate pick-ups with my little sister.
Right now, it feels like I need it to be safe.
I’m not against the phone policy being enforced, as I feel it’s actually making people more engaged in their schoolwork. But during these times of danger, phones can be used to check that loved ones are alright and that our surroundings are safe.
I believe the school board, the teachers, and North High should be more lenient on the ban until we reach a safer time in the future.
Rules and regulations for a heedless country
By Azalea Petry-Towns, North News Intern
Every time I open my phone, there’s a new headline. The murder of Renee Good, a Venezuelan man getting shot, raiding Roosevelt High School, and people being abducted from their jobs. None of these incidents have been ethical or legal. So where does that leave us?
It’s hard to care about editing an essay for a school assignment when I’m not even sure if my classmates will make it home. There are so many questions that keep rattling through my brain.
When you grow up, there’s a huge emphasis on rules and expectations that we’re expected to follow. In school, you have to put your phone up, follow a dress code, present yourself a certain way, and in life, there are always guidelines you have to fit into.
Rules are how kids and teenagers are taught to make sense of the world, and the calamity of our outside world shatters that illusion into a million tiny shards, shredding any modicum of understanding I’ve ever had for how people are supposed to operate.
What are we supposed to do when the ones who are breaking the law are part of the federal government? What am I supposed to do as a kid who still has to finish high school, go to college, start a career, and live my life?
Living through this is difficult for anyone, but it’s hard to feel hopeful when I’ve been forced to contend with this hypocrisy for the last 10 years of my childhood. Naivety and ignorance has never been something my generation could afford.
As a teenager, your thoughts, opinions, and feelings are already dismissed by the adults around you while simultaneously being fed the notion that it’s “up to us” to fix the remains of a world we’ve been left with.
Voting is a powerful tool I can’t yet use, and it’s hard to watch the world grow less and less safe while feeling powerless to do anything to prevent it. I can vote in the upcoming midterms, but even that feels like it will be too late.